Monday, February 13, 2012

Internet Slang Among Young Generation

Chapter 44 Storytellers as Tutors in Technique explored the effect of language and imagery on the children audience. While reading the material for this week, I thought I would like to write something about the influence of internet slang among young generation.

“If we look at this process we see that the individual, who develops, say, a particular style of expression, is either ignored by the peers or accepted by them. If he and his style are accepted, his style is taken over by the group, and in at least this sense it is no longer his.” (p.294)

Internet slang have popularized for a long time in contemporary society, especially among young generation. Among teenagers, internet acronyms are used in spoken as well as in written communications. For example, “LOL” meaning laugh out loud, “ROFL” meaning rolling on the floor laughing, and “4gt” meaning forgot. Other popular words also emerged rapidly via internet without any omens. On person develops a “new word” and disseminate it to the young generation through internet. Some of the words are quickly accepted by masses and then it becomes a kind of culture.

In my opinion, some popular internet slangs sacrifice their real meanings. The young internet slang culture could cause generation gap between older generations which is not favorable for communication. It’s also controversial while internet slangs are used in mass media, such as TV reporter uses popular words in the news report. What do you think about the impact of internet slang?

2 comments:

In China, internet slang also exists. Many TV programs or shows use those new words in order to appeal to the younger audience. But it is kind of wired when I heard such words coming from the hosts aged around 50. There is also some argument concerning whether these internet slang should be put into the dictionary or used in written communications. But in China, many new words exist only for a short time and people will soon forget some of them as time goes by.

Ok. Soapbox time. Internet slang, text messages and 144 characters have affected our writing and attention spans. If something doesn't grab our attention and make a point in very-few-easy-to-understand words, we tune out. The message doesn't get through. Our writing style has suffered as well. The best way to improve your writing is through writing and reading. Oxford University Press has studied the use of Twitter and what 144 characters have done to our language and writing skills. Here is a sample of what they found:"Seems the most commonly tweeted word is (hold the drum roll) “the.”And because Twitter thrives on users talking about themselves, the second most commonly tweeted word is “I.” Interestingly, “I” ranks tenth in regular written communication."

"Oxford University Press also found gerunds are heavily utilized by the Twitter crowd – among the most popular words are “going,” “getting” and “watching.” Tech terms such as “Google,” “Facebook,” “blog” and “Mac” also rank high with users."

"Here’s more of what came from monitoring 1.5 million random tweets. There were:

2,098,630 total sentences22,431,033 total wordsclose to 15 words per tweet, andnearly 1.5 sentences per tweet.And compared to formal writing, the casual lingo of Twitter includes a greater frequency of “OK” and “f***.”"